Paul Goodman interviews Theresa Villiers

In the second of a series of interviews - Jeremy Hunt was first - Paul Goodman interviews the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport. Nick Herbert MP is next in the series.

I’m biased in favour of Theresa Villiers.  Since MPs are meant to declare their interests, this should be made clear up front.  She headed up our committee team for two successive finance bills when I was a Shadow Treasury Minister.  These bills are hard pounding: detailed, technical and laborious.

Theresa, almost brand new in the Commons (“seven months in”, she reminds me later) was extremely considerate, led the team adeptly, and seemed to have an inexhaustible appetite for the arcane details of capital gains, real estate investment trusts and profit share agencies.  She was a sympathetic mixture of steel and hesitancy. What on earth, I used to wonder, does she do in her spare time - if she has any?  What makes her tick?  Now I’m about to try to find out.

She sweeps into Portcullis House wearing a grey trouser suit and large-beaded purple necklace (the finer fashion details escape your correspondent), and clutching a can of red bull caffeine – “breakfast”, she explains.  The commentators seem to be a bit divided about Theresa.  Some would take the red bull accessory as a potential trademark, viewing her as a tough lady – a second Thatcher in the making.  She certainly came to Commons with a terrific reputation as a Euro-sceptic.  Others would quarrel with this assessment, seeing her as a bit too unpushy to sharp-elbow her way to the top of the table.

"We passionately believe that high speed rail yields huge economic benefits."

I find evidence for both views.  What about the criticism that the high speed rail network is a gimmick, I ask, a bit of green window-dressing for the consumption of Liberal Democrat voters?

Theresa champs at the bit, and comes back at me: “It’s not green window-dressing.  We passionately believe that high speed rail yields huge economic benefits.  You just have to look at Lille.  For years, it was a dead-end place.  For years, it had considerably higher unemployment than the French average.  It fought hard to get on the TVG network and has been totally transformed by the regeneration benefits.”